Namjoon could feel the red cloth tied around his neck like a shackle.

That made it all the more worse, the fact that all he had to do to take it off was unknot it from around his throat. He wore shades of blue, the crimson all the more prominent and out of place on his being. He tugged at the mud smeared into the fur lining his coat, unnerved by the girl standing not so far from him.

Seokjin had sent him out to meet with Chief Adarshini of the Southern Water Tribe.

He’d seen what she was capable of which made him all the more unsettled. Not only was she a powerful bender, but she was female. The girl went against all of his teachings. He never would have thought women were capable of fighting like men if given the chance.

His world tilted on its axis.

This whole time he had a giant resource he could have made use of, but discarded them because of tradition. Because that was what his society taught him. They were meant to look at, like picturesque flowers blooming in the spring. To calm his pain and keep the Northern Water Tribe together. If he ever made it back home things would change. If any girl wished to learn how to water bend he would have someone teach her, and if no one would volunteer he’d do it himself. Progress would be slow, the nobles and commoner’s alike fighting against him, but if it created even one girl similar to the one that stood before him it would be worth it.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever make it back home.

The girl that stood before him was average in height, with brown eyes that challenged him uncaring of his title. She was leaning on another boy with the typical blue eye color of the water tribe, although something in his stance reminded him of fire a bender. It was a bit unsettling to realize, and he wondered why looking at him made Namjoon feel that.

Adarshini was probably still weak from that burst of power not so long ago, but even so Namjoon did not wish to fight her in a water bending contest. He would probably win, but at what cost to himself?

“What do you want?”

He nearly flinched at her tone. He had come here under a banner of white toting peace, but this was a women. He didn’t know how woman viewed war, if her actions would be different from a man’s.

It made her unpredictable, and that almost frightened him more than the Fire Prince. At least he knew Prince Seokjin had it out for him, he didn't know anything about her.

“Crown Prince Seokjin of the Fire Nation has an offer for you appraise.”

It was what the prince had commanded him to say. The last proposal from the Fire Nation to the Southern Water Tribe was two years ago. Since then the Fire Nation hadn’t bothered, sure of their victory. He couldn’t help but notice it was two years ago that Prince Seokjin had taken over the Fire Nation’s military in the South.

The girl leaned on her staff, the boy next to her tightening his grip on her arm. “You’re Prince Namjoon, aren’t you?”

He paused at a loss, unsure how to continue. Both of them knew the Prince of the Northern Water Tribe had ignored the South’s multiple pleas for aid.

“It’s obvious,” she continued, not bothering to wait for an answer. “The lips and dimples, the shape of your face and strong brow bone. We were sent pictures of you by your father when you were a child. Our chief shared them with us all and thanked the ancestors for your birth. Until a few months ago they hung up in the last chief’s tent. Now he is dead.”

Namjoon turned away. While the North had left their brethren to die off the South had celebrated them. He could push off that responsibility, act as if it was his father and older brother who had set the tone of their support for the South, but at the end of the day it was Namjoon who decided to burn all the letters during his reign.

“The North has fallen?” the unnamed boy asked.

Namjoon shook his head. “No.” Not yet. “Only me.”

Her eyes trained on something behind him, probably the ship in the distance with Prince Seokjin standing at the stern. Namjoon almost wanted to say the fire bender had become obsessed with this water bender, searching for any information on her.

It was as if she didn’t exist until a week ago.

Perhaps there were water benders even further South and they had decided to give one of their best benders to aid them. Or maybe the South was just like the North. With the men all dead there was no one to stop her.

“I have family here?” Namjoon asked.

Her lips made a thin line across her face. “Apparently not. You left them here to die.”

Left us here to die, was hidden just underneath the meaning of her words.

“If you were family you wouldn’t have done that,” she continued.

“Are they alive though?”

All he knew about that side of his family was that when his his great aunt arrived in the South she hadn’t married the chief. The Southern Water Tribe didn’t even known his aunt was royalty until the North wrote asking about her.

She stared at him, and something about her eyes made him fidget like a child. “Your great aunt is alive last I heard.”

“Her name is Haru,” he pressed.

“Not anymore. She changed her name when she came here.”

The boy beside her frowned, a strange look on his face as he stared at her. Working through the puzzle of her words, the possibilities. He went to open his mouth but Adarshini cut him off.

“What are your terms?”

Namjoon flinched. His terms, as if Namjoon was the reason for the South’s dead people and desecrated village.

Perhaps she was right.

“Give all your water benders up and the Fire Nation will leave the rest of your people to live out their lives.”

He had edited the sentence a bit. Seokjin had said ‘miserable lives’ among various other things, but the message was the same.

Rage filtered through her features, which was quickly smothered beneath a frigid expression as cold as the weather surrounding them. “Tell me, Prince Namjoon of the Northern Water Tribe, if you were in my position would you give up your people?”

The snow drifted down filled with specs of soot, the Fire Nations war engines ruining the purity of the snow. He stared out at the horizon but could see nothing. Only more sleet.

“No.”

She nodded. “Very good. Then you have my answer.”

“Wait!” He went to touch her arm but the boy knocked him over before he could even grasp at her tattered sleeve. He wiped the snow off his face, gaping at him. The last time someone dared hit him out of anger was when he was a child. “I just-what is her name? That’s all I want to know.”

The Chief shook her head, and with the staff she leaned on it almost felt like the ancestors themselves were looking down upon him and giving him judgment.

“Today will be the day I ignore you, Prince Namjoon of the Northern Water Tribe.”

Darshi hobbled through the snow drifts, ensuring the Fire Nation was out of view before bending an opening in the snow. A tunnel was revealed b